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#5587 08/24/00 05:18 PM
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AnnaStrophic,

You'll be glad to know that in a high school English class, we studied the lyrics to several Beatles songs (you can surely compile a literary list in moments) and their synergistic arrangement on their albums. This along side with Yeats, Longfellow, Whitman, and others. History, Literature, heck, maybe even Government, Economics, and P.E. Well, maybe not the P.E.


#5588 08/24/00 09:33 PM
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Worse than that (could it be worse than not remembering Lennon?) is that they probably can't find Viet Nam on a map, identify the capital of half the U.S. states (or anyl the world's nations), recall who the second president os the U.S. was, who the prior U.S. president was, etc. etc. etc.

I must say, I'm quite offended by the agism that has been plaguing this board of late. I, and the vast majority of my peers know who John Lennon was. I also know who Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr are. I'm well aware of the location of Vietnam, I know that John Adams was the second president, and I assure you, I can name, with little hesitation, all the state capitals. Perhaps the arrogance of the baby-boomers has overshadowed the possibility that there exists some intelligence in the masses younger than 30. Yes, I agree that grade inflation has become a growing problem in our schools, but this doesn't mean that we don't know who Abraham Lincoln was.

And by the way, I can't stand rap.


#5589 08/25/00 01:32 AM
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>>, I'm quite offended by the agism that has been plaguing this board of late.

I apologize to those I have offended. I didn't intend to stereotype younger generations. I meant to comment on the "pre-teens" mentioned in the anecdote. My premise was that some pre-teens are enveloped in a world of pop culture (hence, the pop music references) and are unfortunately sheltered from some things of larger cultural significance. Regrettably, I used unoriginal examples.

As for disparaging the younger generations, I did not intend the comments to be that far-reaching. I'm of your generation, and I hope consumerism won't overshadow us.


#5590 08/25/00 05:35 AM
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The explanation is rather simple: Education is connected with economic wellfare. And we know that the gap between "have"s and "havenot"s is widening steadily.


#5591 08/26/00 01:36 AM
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A gentle reminder to my fellow baby-boomers: the world did not in fact begin with us. My teens cannot name the individual Beatles, and I couldn't care less. Our generation, as a whole, was no better at naming our parents'
idols than our kids are at naming ours.

Now, prior to the inventions of movies and radio, I would venture a guess that younger generations might have been able to name most of their parents' idols. Information did not come from a wide variety of sources back then. Also,
people didn't travel (and thus be exposed to new learning) as easily at that time as we do now.
What do you-all think about this theory?


#5592 08/28/00 04:38 AM
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I think the reason behind it has more to do with the need for rapid turnover of idols to boost sales of records, cassettes, or CDs or whatever. If idols stay around you don't need to buy the recordings, you can just listen to your parents' or elder siblings', if you have any.

Bingley


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#5593 08/28/00 01:00 PM
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>>the need for rapid turnover of idols to boost sales

Interesting and enlightening perspetive on the economics of turnover. I add that IMO current bands and groups produce far less songs per year than the last generation's artists. It seems that every other album today includes remixes, remakes, and live performances of the band's older hits rather than complete (and risky) new songs.

Brandon


#5594 08/29/00 05:58 AM
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I concur, and that is not even mentioning the pervasive "sampling" which surely means to steal in some lexicons. It's the result of future shock or, in the case of some bands, future shlock. The re-made music cannot be coming from the soul ..... more likely from the wallet. What is the word for terms like sample which are an innocuous or even bloated way to describe something that is nasty or even criminal? I should know this. This phenomenon rankles me greatly.


michaelo



#5595 08/29/00 01:54 PM
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have you ever noticed how many people are involved in the making of a cd these days, and how clear the sounds are?
of course there are artists who use sampling cds without even changing the sound, artists who remake - not arrange - songs just old enough to be out of the reach of teenagers' memories, not to mention artists who rip off, repeat, regurgitate just to make money.
but that's not new! heavens above, artists, musicians and writers have been borrowing for ever.
we don't live in the two guitars, bass and drums era anymore. sound is filtered through computers, mixers the size of football fields, corrected, effected, tuned, detuned etc etc etc.
teenagers have terrific taste. i believed my own taste at that age, and i believe the taste of teenagers today.

p.s. sampling is also "quoting" and often brings a beautiful but forgotten phrase back to public attention.


#5596 08/29/00 06:26 PM
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>>What is the word for terms like sample which are an innocuous or even bloated way to describe something that is nasty or even criminal?

michaelo, I think the term euphemism applies here.
It rankles me, too--it seems the whole world is run by greed, and I hate it. Whatever happened to doing something just because it is the right thing to do?


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